Together We Lead
In this passage, we see five characteristics of an authentic call. To understand the passage’s relationship to a call to serve God, the background of the text is not insignificant. From a thirty-thousand-foot view, Jesus’s definition of and instruction on difficult or costly discipleship must be the lens through which these verses are understood. The immediate context of this text is important. In verses 13–20, Matthew explained, “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” (Matthew 16:13–15). I have visited Caesarea Philippi on two occasions. This location is a unique site in the Holy Land. Near the back of the city, there is a cave located at the bottom of a large cliff. Inside this cave is a spring, and the spring is the source of a river that originates at the back of Caesarea Philippi. This river continues to flow through the middle of the remains of the city, and tourists on a pilgrimage can see it to this day. In Jesus’s day, the phrase “gates of Hades” was believed generally to represent and express the “powers of death.”1 Specifically, however, on top of a ledge next to the river and underneath the cliff in Caesarea Philippi were several temples to pagan gods. The most notorious and perhaps nefarious of these gods was Pan. Child sacrifice was included in the regular worship of Pan. In fact, Caesarea Philippi was so closely associated with and a center for the worship of this god that formerly the city was known as Paneas.2 Ruins of these temples, and especially the temple of Pan, which stands the closest to the cave out of which the river of the city flows, Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, The New American Commentary, vol. 22 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), 253. 2 Blomberg, 250. 1
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